Most ISPs provide dial-up access through the Point-to-Point Protocol, or PPP. The KDE program that gets you connected to the Internet with a modem is called KPPP. On a standard KDE setup, you'll find it under Kicker's big K by choosing the Internet menu, then clicking Internet Dialer. For those interested, an overview of KPPP including screenshots is available.

Comments

KPPP is currently somewhat flawed in design-- it requires that it manages the connection itself (you can't use your system's init-scripts to connect/disconnect) and it add differentiation between protocols (do your grandparents care whether their internet is using PPP, Ethernet, or SLIP? I kinda doubt it).

If my grand parents use the phone line, they sure do :) ... everyone does (except if it's a leased line or they are obscenly rich and for some reason they use ppp)

The reason why kppp differentiates between protocols is kppp is not an universal network connection tool. It works only over dial-up. If you are on ethernet, you use your init-scripts to start-up the network connection and probably don't stop it until shutdown/reboot. If you use a modem, you connect to the Internet when there is a need for that, and disconnect as soon as that needs end.

I've been using KPPP for years on SuSE 8.2, and I really like it. It does exactly what it sets out to do. However, on a recent install of SuSE 9.1 I noticed that a dial-up connection always hangs up the first time I try to connect after a reboot. All further attempts to connect work flawlessly. I'm not sure if that's a KPPP problem or something else (wvdial, some permissions, etc.), can anyone help?

I like kppp and it is my perfered application to connect with my dial-up modem. However, the process described by Mr.Gagne to configure kppp leaves out a major step. That is how to let a normal user (not root) to dial out. The procedure requires additional configuration steps. This is a neglected aspect of the kppp documentation at least up to kde 3.2.